The Catalyst
by KomatheSoap
Summary: The world has ended. Zombies have taken over the mostly peaceful world for themselves, and now nineteen teenagers must find a way to survive in this land gone awry. GerIta, UsUk, Spamano, PruHun, and SuFin


_Okay, so now I've joined the zombie craze that has taken hold of America at least. Quick note-this story takes place while all of our characters are attending a Montessori school. Skipping the whole spiel about Montessori, at the end of every year the seventh and eighth graders take a trip somewhere using the money they've raised over the year. At least that was how it worked in my Montessori middle school. Anyway, the characters in this are juniors in high school, and are currently taking a bus to get to their location. Also, the way we did at my middle school was that we would all be in alphabetical order, and when a teacher told us to count off, we'd be all "one" "two" until we reached like forty something, so yeah. End of note._

"Hey Ludwig," seventeen year old Feliciano Vargas asked as he looked out the bus window at the trees they passed, his legs swinging. "where are we going again?"

"Omaha." The blonde said, wondering how the Italian could have the attention span of a literal goldfish. "We're going to Omaha, remember?"

"Oh, right!" He sounded almost triumphant as he exclaimed it. "Omaha! Wait. Why Omaha?"

"To see the zoo, mostly. They have the biggest under water tunnel." Ludwig responded.

"Really?" I can't wait to see it!" Feliciano sounded as carefree as always.

"Hey West! I spy with my little eye…" Gilbert said from the seat he shared with Elizabeta behind his brother.

"A tree." Ludwig responded dryly. "It's a tree isn't it?"

"Ugh. Screw you West." The albino said sounding defeated, hitting his head against the back of his younger brother's chair. "Hey Feli. Wanna play I spy?"

"Yeah!" Feliciano exclaimed excitedly. "Alright, I'll go first. I spy with my little eye… something yellow!"

"Yellow?"

"Uh-huh. Yellow."

"The outside of the bus?"

"No. We can't _see _the outside of the bus, Gil." Feliciano giggled.

"Alright, um... Kiku's phone thingy?" Hearing his name, their friend Kiku Honda looked up from his Iphone. He was seated

"You mean my phone charm?" He asked, holding it up. "Well, actually, this isn't a phone charm. Your western phones have no places to put phone charms. But I happened to find a phone charm of sorts. It lets me plug it into my headphone jack, and it looks and acts like a phone charm, but it isn't."

"Alright then." The albino said, looking confused. "Is it Kiku's phone charm?"

"Nope."

"Is it…that building?" The Italian turned to look out his window, and saw a tall bright orange office building.

_A down town area. _Ludwig noted.

"No."

"The design on my shirt?"

"Still no."

"Elizabeta's hair flower?"

"Get your filthy hands out of my hair!" Elizabeta yelled.

"Haha. Sorry."

"Wrong again." The Italian almost sang, looking triumphant. Ludwig couldn't help himself. He quietly asked Feliciano what the yellow object was.

"Your hair." He had responded in a whisper.

"Is it…West's socks?"

"What?" The Italian almost shouted in response. "Ludwig's socks are yellow? Let me see!" The German promised himself he'd get the chance to strangle Gilbert, and lifted his right leg on to the seats he and the Italian sat on.

"Only because Gilbert hid all of my other pairs." He lifted the leg of his jean pants and exposed his bright yellow socks.

"Whoa."

"Yeah. Got them for him for his birthdays, but he never wore them." Gilbert said, sitting on his knees so that he could ruffle his little brother's hair.

"They are bright yellow socks!" The man shouted, batting his brother's hands away.

"Mr. Beilschmidt please sit down." Five seats away and to the right of the unruly group sat two of their teachers. Mr. Machado and Mr. Eldenstein, Mr. Eldenstein the one who had pointed Gilbert out, had dark brown hair and purple eyes. He was fairly strict and a neat freak. Mr. Machado was a pretty messy person, and carefree as long as you didn't get on his bad side.

"So is it his socks?"

"No. But close."

"Is it…his hair?"

"Yeah! You got it!" Feliciano smiled, even though Gilbert couldn't see it. Seeing the small Italian happy, which was almost constantly, made Ludwig feel happy and warm inside of his chest. While his childish behavior, inability to be serious, his messiness, and habit to get into trouble could be irritating, he was worth more than the trouble he caused. Many times he had helped Ludwig with his own problems, and let him see things in a better light. While he ran away from problems, and had-at least once-sold his friends out by threat of force, he was a good person, and friend. He just needed to man up.

"Hey…what's wrong with her?" Tino Vainamoinen asked from near the front of the bus. He sat with his boyfriend, Berwald Oxenstierna at the opposite side of Ludwig, so he couldn't see what he was talking about.

"Oh my goodness." Mr. Eldenstein gasped, putting a hand to his mouth.

"Kiku, what's he talking about?" Ludwig asked over the whispers of his peers, to his friend that was pressing their face to their window. A few moments passed before Kiku turned away, wide-eyed.

"A woman… She only had one arm. The other one was a bleeding stump." Ludwig could hear his hear beat in his chest. _Wh-what?_

"Eh? R-really?" Feliciano asked, quietly as the bus erupted into yelling and panic around them. Some were cries of "Drive! Drive!" and others "Oh my gosh we have to help them!" Glancing out his own window, Ludwig noticed how all of the people they drove passed seemed a bit…off. As they shambled through the sidewalks, out of tall office buildings, and straight into the street. Then he noticed something else. _There are no other moving cars. _The only vehicle moving down the average-looking sidewalk was their bus. Sure, there were some cars scattered here and there, but none of them were moving. Up front Ludwig saw his teachers and the bus driver talking to each other with panicked expressions.

Feliciano moved closer to the blonde, pushing up against the taller man and trying to make himself as small as possible. He didn't want to keep looking out his window to see the odd bloody people walking through an eerie city. That seemed to be the consensus as the vehicle drove on, to ignore everything outside the bus and hope to get out of the odd town.

They even ignored a red stoplight, speeding right passed it, and if circumstances had been different, Ludwig would have called the driver out on breaking the rules. It seemed the deeper they got into the apparent down town area, the worse things became. More shambling people, more sharp turns made to avoid them, and more odd emptiness.

_ What is going on? _Conversations were being held quietly all around now that the peers had stopped screaming.

"Psst. West." Ludwig heard Gilbert whisper from behind him.

"Yes Gilbert?" He responded.

"What do you think's going on here? What-what's wrong with these people? It's almost like they're…zombies." Ludwig nodded, and then realized his brother could not see him through the seats.

"Yeah." He agreed. Again, if this was any other case, Ludwig would have told his brother not to be such an idiot, zombies couldn't _possibly _be real, but he had made the same realization.

"Z-zombies?" Feliciano asked, horrified.

"No of course not!" Elizabeta yelled-a bit too loudly and happily-before either men could get a word in. However all three of them knew that the false happiness in her voice was just that-false.

"Yeah." Prussia agreed, not wanting to scare the Italian. "No way they're actually zombies."

"Ah.~ That's good." The boy smiled almost as carefree as always. _Almost. _

It was the way he-and sometimes his brother-dealt with their problems, by acting like they didn't exist, until they had to stop pretending. That way of thinking had gotten them both into trouble time and time again, but if it made him better, if only for a moment, then Ludwig would let him keep up the charade.

"Yeah, maybe it's a costume party!" Prussia exclaimed loud enough for the entire bus to hear his false optimism by accident.

"No freaking way, dude, those things are zombies. Z-O-M-B-I-E-S! Like undead killers who-"

"Enough, Alfred!" Arthur yelled back. Everyone was silent. Sure Arthur was occasionally angry…but there was a hint of something else in his voice as he yelled, his head bowed.

"Oh no! Berwald what if they really are zombies?" Tino asked, beginning to feel anxiety well up in his chest.

"I'll keep you safe." Berwald said quietly so that only the Fin could hear. "You and the others."

"I'll help keep you all okay too!" He exclaimed.

"Hey," Andersen voiced from the seat in front of the two, turning and leaning over the back of his seat to come face-to-face with Berwald. "I'm the one who does the saving here!"

"Sit down." Lukas-his boyfriend-added with a tint of embarrassment.

"…Lukas…" Emil said awkwardly from the seat across from his brother. "Can-can I come sit with you?" Lukas nodded, and Emil squeezed his way in between his brother and his friend. While Emil usually spent his time alone and in his own little world, he did still need the comfort of his stronger, and arguably wiser, older bro.

"Nothing's gonna happen to you, you've got big brother." Lukas reminded him. Emil looked away.

"Well I-"

"You've also got me and Berwald and Tino! We'll be fine, 'lil scamp." Andersen said as he sat back down and ruffled the younger boy's hair, despite his protests.

Meanwhile Kiku sat in now silence, trying to figure out what was happening. He didn't find the theory of a zombie apocalypse particularly realistic. Things couldn't go from fine to: poof zombies. Plus how did they function? He was in the middle of those thoughts when the bus suddenly swerved far right, and everybody felt a dull thud as the tires tread over something.

_ Hi~ So I'm back and re-re-doing this story because it sucks so yeah. The end. Please rate and review and all that jazz, bye!_


End file.
